Civil Rights Greensboro

Civil Rights Greensboro provides access to archival resources documenting the modern civil rights era in Greensboro, North Carolina, from the 1940s to the early 1980s. During this formative period, Greensboro was an epicenter of activity, continuing a tradition that traces its roots back to the 19th century when members of the area's large Quaker population provided stops on the Underground Railroad.

Greensboro is widely cited as the birthplace of the sit-in movement in America, due to the actions of four North Carolina A&T College students at the Woolworth's lunch counter on February 1, 1960. The city was also the scene of several other history-making events in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, as well as lesser known activities and issues in the struggle for social justice and equal treatment in public accommodations, schools, housing, politics, and employment. Civil Rights Greensboro documents many of these through historical materials such as correspondence, reports, speeches, photographs, newspaper clippings, and oral histories held at five cultural heritage institutions in North Carolina.